The Great Stampede #45: Ocean’s 8 – Review round-up

Another day, another film review round-up and today it’s the turn of Ocean’s 8 – the all-female heist movie and spin-off from Ocean’s 11/12/13.*

*Please delete as applicable.

Directed by Gary Ross, Ocean’s 8 stars Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter and hits US cinema screens this week. The film arrives in the UK in two weeks’ time.

Well, the reviews are now online, so here’s what the critics have said about Ocean’s 8…

Matt Goldberg of Collider awarded Ocean’s 8 a B+ and said: “Ocean’s 8 doesn’t really break the mold as much as it remakes it in a new image, and hopefully it will get its own trilogy just like its preceding pictures.”

Benjamin Lee of the Guardian was less impressed with Ocean’s 8 and gave the film two stars (out of five) and said: “It’s made watchable thanks to the cast but star power alone cannot mask creative inadequacy.”

Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair called Ocean’s 8 good, but said “it could have been great” blaming director Gary Ross for not taking the movie to the sort of level that previous Ocean’s movies achieved under director Steven Soderbergh. He said: “These actresses deserve way more”. He added: “If a sequel’s on the table, the cast should band together and demand equal Soderbergh for equal work.”

And finally, Ian Freer of Empire was somewhere in the middle with Ocean’s 8 and awarded the movie three stars (out of five) and said: “There is something refreshing about seeing a group of women thrive on their wits, guile, smarts, cunning, proficiency and chutzpah rather than sex. It’s just a shame they weren’t tested even further. They could have handled it.”

So, there you go. Mixed reviews, but a general feeling that Ocean’s 8 is an enjoyable movie, it just had the potential to be something a little more.